Your Excellency Sir. Before you join the bandwagon, I take God beg wuna remember GUMAN ARNA. I know that in your language GUMAN means somebody who is knowledgeable. You are also the first person from your tribe to become the Governor of Plateau State. I am giving this advise because like you and many other Plateau State indigenes, we do not have any other place in Nigeria we can call our own.
1. I was priviledged to be born 10 years b4 independence. At 14 years old. I was returning to my village in Dec. when I had to spend the night at Mangu. On Friday morning the market which was then right on the road was just filling up when a group of 15 cars belonging to the ARNA “party” was travelling to Jos and of course had to pass through the market. While the first five vehicles passed through without harm, the remaining 10 were stoned viciously left and right. How the last vehicle was still able to drive through was a miracle. The lesson to me then was that if you do not belong to the ruling party, you are a second class citizen who should exist only to serve those born to rule.
As if that was not enough, I came back to my village only to discover that 13 of the most prominent heads of households in the Village Area had been arrested. They were chased like mad dogs by their brothers who belonged to ruling party, on the orders of the party leadership and taken to prison at PANKSHIN, where they served under the most terrible of Prison conditions because they belonged to the ARNA “party”. The village did not celebrate Christmas that year until late February the following year when the ARNA 13 had been released. When the most prominent COCIN CHURCH leader then came to serve the Holy Communion that month, all the communicants refused to take Holy Communion from him because they saw him as the leader that had been used by the ruling party to persecute them. He was of course a prominent member of the ruling but could not stop the party from persecuting Christians. It took the intervention of church leaders who did not join the bandwagon to convince the 13 to remain with the Church. These others had to serve them Holy Communion subsequently in order to carry the villagers along.
2. REMEMBER GUMAN ARNA.The same young man who witnessed the events of 1964 / 1965 was later to attend the one and only important University in the region, named after the leader of that ruling party. Of course the University stoo d out as the most Nigerianised University. He was therefore very proud to be part of that system. However, it did not take long for the ethno-religious fault lines to manifest. It was during a 300 level course in Animal Science titled ANIMAL PRODUCTS. The Americans had built a State of the Art Animal Products Lab for practicals. When it came to slaughtering of animals, the group of students who believe they were born to rule will not allow our lecturer train us on slaughtering. They said it was their exclusive right to slaughter animals for human consumption. The assurance by the lecturer that the meat will be sold only to none members of their religion was not acceptable. It took courage for the lecturer and those of us from GUMAN ARNA. who stood by him b4 he could lead us in the practical.
3. REMEMBER GUMAN ARNA. After 35 years of meritorious service to that University, and at a time when the same Man was at the peak of his career as a Professor, he came back home one day to find a letter which said his appointment had been terminated because his services were no longer required. He was just 51 years old, with no quiries in his files, was a visiting Prof. to one other University and had graduated 2 PhD and 2 MSc students that year alone. He found out later that the actual reason was because of his GUMAN ARNA activities.that he was sacked. It took 5 years of Court action b4 his termination of appointment was annuled and he was reinstated.
4. REMEMBER GUMAN ARNA. When the soldiers rolled out a program for return to civilian rule in 1976. some four red blooded, hot hearted die heart Middle Belt lecturers from ABU got together and floated Club 19. This later metaphorsed into NPP. The goal of the four was to establish a truly Nigerian party that would be all inclusive with ethno-religious sentiments marginalised. It was the same group that worked to establish the SDP and later the PDP. This is the reason why Plateau was NPP, SDP and PDP. The marginalisation of ethno-religious sentiments was demonstrated in success of PDP’s Christian – Christian ticket of 1978 and Muslim-Muslim ticket of June 12 1992. Both tickets received support across Nigeria without grumbling. It is pertinent that the founding fathers of the Middle Belt who fought to support, the UMBC, NPP, SDP, PDP in the past and the PDP/LP in 2023, inspite of an APC Gov. who doubled as the APC gubernatorial candidate, wanted to maintain the Plateau State indigenes unique identity. Any Plateau State Governor who wants to deviate must think twice.
5. REMEMBER GUMAN ARNA. I am very very happy for my junior brother Prof. Nentawe. His meritorious rise to APC Chairman is unprecedented in the history of Politics in Nigeria. However, this may not be unconnected with the motive of the powers that be to capture and control Plateau State Politics. He reached the pick of his political career last month as Minister and Party Chairman. Now that he has been reduced to Chairman, it is very easy for them to make him follow the path of previous party Chairmen. Do not be surprised that once Gov. MUTFWANG decamps to APC, Nentawe may be removed from office or forced to resign.
6. In what way has joining APC helped Benue State?
7. The latest comparison of States budget performance shows that Anambra and Enugu States ranked highest, are they APC states?
8. Mr Governor Sir, I rest my case.
